First, YpsiDixit dropped off the face of the earth, then Brett said he was letting his blog languish as he focused on Flickr, and now I hear local blogger Cameron Getto has resigned from the Ypsilanti School Board. One wonders how long Brian Robb, our blogger on City Council, can hold on. Or, for that matter, how long yours truly can keep churning out this swill… I wonder if the blog bubble that has engulfed Ypsi these past several years has finaly burst.
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OMG! Blogging: The next pet rock. It was just a fad, after all…. Seriously, where’s Laura? I know she posted off of an ancient machine– Maybe that crashed? ~Or~ Did That new “beau” of hers sweep her off elsewhere? Who out there knows? Ypsi blogdom is missing one of its stars…
I think E. Howard Hunt was involved…
for real, is ypsi-dixit okay? i’m getting worried. who knows how to find out if she’s okay??
I posted last week or the weeeek beforee, when Mark’s body was oozing maple syrup, that I feared he’d done away with YpsiDixit, and was using his illness as an alibi. Now I AM worried. Can someone go over to her house and knock on the door?
I Googled ypsidixit.com and was shown “the future home of ypsidixit.com” but nothing else. Perhaps, she’s moving to a new site. No se nada.
egpenet: You did the same mistake I did once– Apparently one must input the “slash blog” to access her site. Aside from this, I nominate Ypsi’s other “A-list” blogger (that’s you, Mark!) to go over and tap the door– Oozing maple syrup and suffering pink-eye, it nonetheless falls to you, sir.
robr … I DID use the slash/blog at first. I’m a frequent visitor. I have ben doing the slash/blog for two weeks … and nothing. So, I simply Googled to see what ELSE I could find … and got the “future” home site.
I agree … Mark’s at fault … although I suspect that that dog from Chicago has something to do with Y-D’s disappearance. Oh’ma’gawd … you don’t think?!!!!! (Did Y-D have big furry ears?)
My apologies, egpenet! May I assume that you at least get her last post (as I do), from I think March 9th? On the other hand, in regards to Mark, maybe you’re on to something– My “spider-sense” would go into overdrive if anyone observed freshly turned earth in say, Mark’s backyard…
“Let’s see … murmur … Maglight … D-Cells … where are those fresh D-cells? Ah. OK. Loaded. Trust me, robr, I’ve been trained to do this.”
OK, let’s not get carried away, boys.
It’s late. I’ve deleted a dozen attempts at commenting on this post. This is the final, self-serving one that will finally let me sign off.
I’ve been trying to balance the community candor of this blog, with the realization that what I say is public record.
On this topic, tonight, I can’t find that balance. Loose lips and hand grenades.
Happy Easter.
Sounds like Ol’ EC knows why Getto left the board and what really happened to Laura. It’s a shame he didn’t have just one more beer before sitting down at the computer.
I’ll buy.
I feel like I’ve walked into an epsiode of Twin Peaks.
Unless Steve’s playing another one of his April Fools jokes, it looks like Amy Doyle has left the school board too. I guess we’re supposed to think it’s just a coincidence.
I don’t want to scoop her big news, but anyone that drives by Laura’s bus stop can see what’s going on. If you’re that curious, send her an email. She’ll be back soon enough.
As far as the consolidation in local blogging goes, I like it. Just as there were more than 400 automobile companies in the area at one time, we are down to the Big 3 — Mark, Me, and David Kircher.
Looks like I’m going to have to start a blog. Do you want to hear a story about my dog?
It is with deep regret that I must resign from making further comments on this topic in order to spend more time with my family.
Okay, what’s the deal? You guys started this thread weeks ago and I still see no signs of Laura. I’ve been asking around and either no one knows or no one is saying. I can’t drive by her old bus stop to sniff for clues, but I find her not posting in 6+ weeks to be very, very odd. If you can’t say where, can you at least say whether or not she’s all right and when she might be back (if she’s gone)? I find it hard to believe she’d leave her garden at this time of year. Has she unplugged from the grid completely?
anna, i’ve been privately contacted several times now in regards to this matter, and i’ll tell you what i told them, as i believe it deserves being publicly repeated-
beyond the fact that a group of people live in the ypsilanti area, and also have blogs, there really isn’t otherwise much of a connection between them.
a few might be friends, a few might have met eachother in person, a few might leave a comment here or there, but they (we) are honestly not some sort of trade union, and on average there’s little to no familiarity between one another whatsoever.
i realize that things like dan duchene’s article last year might give the impression we all walk around with our arms linked up, like the sailors in “On the Town” or something, but this really couldn’t be farther from the truth.
and i’m not sure who the “You guys” are that you think started this thread, as I have seen mark in person on many occasions, and he appears to just be a single individual, unless of course, i have seen a different mark maynard on each occasion, which is possible but not probable.
Schutzman’s right to some extent. We don’t have secret meetings. We don’t blog side by side in an underground facility. We don’t vacation together… With that said, however, people do tend to tell us things about one another, and we are, as a race, fairly observant. So, I don’t take any offense at your asking, Anna. Unfortunately, all I can tell you in this instance is that she’s alive. I saw her on her bike just yesterday.
And, you suspect right, Brett. It is a different Mark Maynard every time. I continue to grow and evolve.
mark, the next time i see you i hope it’s during one of your moulting stages. That eyeball thing of yours is probably a sign it’s about to start, right?
I’m getting ready to shed a husk as I type this. If you like, I can have it sent to you.
Schutzman, WTF? I have no idea what article you’re talking about. Knowing the general word on the street is a far cry from secret meetings or handshakes or Kum-bay-ya singing, or whatever. And flames are so 80s.
Mark, I’m glad to hear that LB is OK. Let me know next time you two walk arm in arm.
I didn’t say she was OK, Anna. I haven’t spoken with her. I just said that she was alive and on her bike.
And I don’t think Schutzman meant for his comment to come across like that. I think he was just saying, in his own unique way, that none of us in this line of work, such as it is, know what’s going on with Laura. I wouldn’t take it personally.
omg and lol, as the kids say.
anna, in reply to your “WTF”:
I was referencing this article, which I’m not surprised if you didn’t see it, as it was the only ypsilanti courier article ever about online journalism, and as such, they didn’t make it available online.
I think they were trying to be ironic.
moulting jokes aside, your “You Guys” comment is the point I wanted to clarify, as (while you may not hold the belief, personally), there is a general view held by many local blog readers that there’s some connection between all of us. This could range from ‘kum-bay-ya’, as you joked, all the way down to just sharing the ‘word on the street’, as you suggested seriously.
Laura’s site is still up, and eyewitnesses (see above) have seen her alive and well, so I don’t see this as an issue of her welfare. The comments made here, and at downtownypsi.org, seem to be suggesting that other local bloggers should be somehow aprised of not only her whereabouts, but also her posting schedule (i.e., “when she might be back”).
Just keep that in mind, was all I meant to say, and if someone has an issue with blogger A, don’t expect bloggers B, C, or D to have received a weekly newsletter that explains everything.
As mark said, I didn’t mean anything personal.
But,
now that you bring up flaming,
I should probably add that, in my opinion, medical experimentation on animals is not only cruel and inhumane, but is also scientifically flawed and has often produced inaccurate test results due to important physiological differences in the subjects. Now that computer modelling and genetic engineering of non-sentient organic components have become sufficiently advanced as to replace such experimentation, I believe that live animals no longer have any place in a modern research laboratory.
sorry for the non-sequitur, but if you’re the anna I think you are, I believe I owed you that from an ypsi~dixit post a while back.
we should be all caught up, now.
and mark, i wasn’t really interested in the husk, per se, as much as i wanted to know when your new exoskeleton would be temporarily soft and thus vulnerable to attack.
thanks, anyway.
You don’t get the weekly newsletter?
hillary, it’s in pdf format, and i refuse to download the free adobe reader.
pdf? Huh. I get it in plain text. Telepathically.
murph, is it in spanish?
Because if so, that might just be your dental fillings picking up wsds.
We were all got issued tin foil hats at the last blogger solidarity workshop for a reason, you know.
and yes, I said “we were all got issued.”
You heard me right.
telepathic delivery? The Online Publishers Guild is not going to like that.
One slight correction. When Mr. Schutzman says above that the article he linked to was “the only Ypsilanti Courier article ever about online journalism,” it may have been more correct if he’d said that it was the only article to appear in the Courier, “in the modern era.” If memory serves, several years ago, perhaps even before Schutzman settled here in Ypsi, there was another article on blogs. Steve Cherry, if I remember correctly, was photographed for it. I believe I may have been quoted. (Back then, there was no blogger telepathy. Steve and I had to use the carrier pigeons.) Of course, it doesn’t exist anywhere online now. If I come across it, though, I will scan it and post it here…. OK, back to the telepathic fun and games.
You vulnerable friend,
-Mark
Yes, and, to be fair, I think the Sentinel also once ran an article about “The Ypsi Telegraphysphere” in february of 1859.
This is when I jumped the shark.
photo: by Mark Mueller
Oh, Dr. Cherry, I just laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. Nearly, I said.
Are you giving a double thumbs-up, Steve?!
And thanks for the link. I’d forgotten all about that, “Ypsilanti is like Twin Peaks without the beauty,” quote.
Since all I know about Ypsilanti is what I read here, I imagined it as populated mostly by bloggers. I envisioned a town filled with scattered loners, hunched over laptops, avoiding eye contact, blogging furiously about zoning and dead things in their yards. It’s a beautiful vision; I hope it’s at least partially true.
I call that a double-fonzie.
I’m giving that comment a double-fonzie, Mr. Skinner. You earned it.